Grasp Emarketing Blog

CEO at Work - Scapel the Organization

While working with a CEO of a mid sized company, and doing a SWOT analysis of its various departments , especially HR and Marketing, we realised that as we asked hard questions about the company and people – he suddenly took a protective stance. The more we tried to take the topic on the weaknesses, the more he argued over the strengths.

We could sense his love for his company. We paused and said “Boss we know you have built a great company,and nobody denies that, but today we are here to discuss the weaknesses, not the strengths,so we can help you make your company better.”

While he felt uneasy, we as business consultants continued the critical analysis and finally created a list of 5 things that this company should do to move ahead and grow amidst the fiercest competition.

Most Business Leaders commit the mistake of loving their company. While it is absolutely justified to love one’s company and defend it , but not to an extent that its spoils the business culture and stops it from moving ahead.

CEOs can get more by criticising their organisation rather than defending its processes. While motivating people is a good thing to do, critically analysing the situation and improving based on scientific and management principles is key to improvement.

What many founder CEOs do when the business grows:

1. They start loving their company
2. Employees become Friends or enemies (within the office.)
3. Mixing Professional Ego and Personal Ego
4. Be victim of the inter-office politics. They become part of the game (played by their key team members) and thus loose control. Some will boast that there is No Politics in my Office, but it is a myth!

What should be done?

1. Treat and Cure your company, do not love it: For those CEOs who were also founders… please stop by, get down from the bus and have a look from outside without bias. In this context, we should look at Doctors. Doctors hardly love their patients (…however attractive they may be ). They look at the patient as a body which needs their service and they are thus able to cure them. If a doctor starts loving the patient, he/she can never put a scalpel in the heart and see the blood of their loved ones flow on the table.
2. Have an external look as a referee: Consider your company like two teams playing a game. Team A – Employees needs to deliver services/ products to Team B Customers, who need to pay for the services to Team A. The CEO needs to be a referee rather than a player. He should not allow either customers to take advantage of the company or vice versa.
3. Remove Personal Ego and Personal Biases toward people: Think and re-think if a judgement or decision is based on personal biases or self-ego. While self esteem is good to maintain respect,ego is bad for business .

In a business, even the CEO is liable to be criticized (even by his juniors), but unfortunately, how many CEOs really accept it and take it positively. Most are filed with Super egos of respect.. and then employees instead of doing right things, do things only to please their Boss..@ the cost of business.

But how to do this?

Looking at the company as case study:
It is difficult to stay out of he company and remove personal bias. This difficulty can be resolved by looking at the company as a case study. Ask 5 critical questions about the key leaders in the organisation.

Five Key questions to ask about your company on a continual basis:

1. How is the performance of a department and its head? Is it best according to the resources available?
2. Is the information coming to us from the juniors accurate? Is there any manipulation in business reports?
3. Are our business processes best in the Industry? Are we doing enough innovation to meet the new challenges ?
4. Is there any redundant resource in the company? Should it be retained, redeployed or re trenched ?
5. What should be weeded out?

We suggest CEOs, don’t love your company, be a doc, scalpel it and weed out the tumour, focus on the long term health of the organisation to keep it fit and growing.